Review: Flip City: Wilderness

It’s no secret that Flip City from Tasty Minstrel Games is one of our favorite little card games. At its core, this deck builder has players earning coins, upgrading their city properties and finding the perfect combination of double sided cards to end the game with 8 victory points. In this review, we’re going to share some of the highs and lows of the latest edition, Flip City: Wilderness.

While this game is an expansion to the original edition from 2015, Flip City: Wilderness can be played completely on its own. You don’t have to own the original Flip City to play. The game follows the same format but adds new locations with a nature theme. If you do own the original, Wilderness is actually a great way to expand this little deck builder.

Into the Woods

The artwork is beautiful as always. This new edition contains cards that put you in the great outdoors and just outside the bustling city. Each player starts with the same set of cards and the goal is to make advances each turn to better your deck of cards. In the center of the table, there are 4 cards in the market that range in price from 2 to 5 coins that are available for purchase.

Just like in original game, both sides of the cards can help you form a strategy to get to 8 victory points quicker than the other players. One thing that stands out in this edition is that recycling cards can be your best friend. You can earn a lot of money by recycling specific cards in your discard pile. I feel like Flip City: Wilderness gives you access to a lot of coins if you use cards in the right way.

There’s nothing revolutionary here, just some new tactics between the new cards. You may notice that this new edition has one fewer card available for purchase in the center of the table. This isn’t a huge deal, but something worth noting for people who enjoy the original game.

The Little Sibling

I really enjoy some of the things that Flip City: Wilderness does. By itself, the game is solid but isn’t as strong as the original. It feels like the younger sibling that has some great qualities. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

This game shines when you merge the two game editions together. Erin and I have played about half a dozen games with both the original and the Wilderness edition smashed together. Tasty Minstrel did a great job of making these two games merge nicely without breaking the strategy of either game. By color coding each card, you can easily pick a couple (non-matching) colors and modify the game.

It’s been a lot of fun mixing and matching the best of both editions and trying new strategies to gain the best cards. I highly doubt that I’ll ever teach Wilderness as an introduction to Flip City. However, I would have a hard time going back to the original game without some of these great new cards thrown into the mix.

Flip City remains one of our “go to” games when we want something quick and fun to play. Flip City: Wilderness has given us even more reasons to bring this series to the table. Recycling cards give you lots of money, sending your useless cards to your opponent using the “Airport” is super satisfying and seeing that dinosaur on the “Archaeology Site” makes us smile every time.

If you own Flip City, do yourself a favor and grab this new edition. If you don’t own either edition, you really need to consider what you’re doing with your life and where you’ve gone wrong.

Visit your local game store to purchase Flip City: Wilderness or order it today through Amazon.